Williams made 'some good progress' in Canada

A second successive scoring result was a welcome boost for the beleaguered Williams team as it prepares for the second half of an already tougher-than-expected 2011 F1 world championship campaign.

Although Pastor Maldonado again went unrewarded despite surviving until lap 61 in tricky conditions, veteran Rubens Barrichello repeated the ninth place he took two weeks earlier in Monaco to double the team's meagre tally through the first seven races of the season.

Six safety car periods, a two-hour stoppage due to rain and a double DRS zone kept the teams on their toes, and Williams out-going technical chief Sam Michael was pleased with the way the FW33 responded top the latest development parts introduced for the 'flyaway' event.

"We raced a new diffuser, brake ducts and barge boards in Canada, and we also had a development to the front wing, although we didn't race that due to the characteristics not suiting the Montréal circuit," he revealed, "We made some good progress in the right direction this weekend, in particular with the development of our exhaust blown diffuser."

Ironically, that particular piece of technology looks likely to have a short shelf-life, with the FIA's Charlie Whiting writing to all twelve teams to express the intention of banning it from next month's British Grand Prix, but Michael insists that the team will continue to press ahead with its version until the end.

"We have some further diffuser modifications for the European Grand Prix and our target is to get into the top ten in both qualifying and the race," he maintained, clearly buoyed by the tactical and technical decisions taken in Canada, "We set up both cars with wet weather in mind, and the tyres held up really well in terms of wear rate and degradation."